Rasmussen: Yes, Dems likely have 2-4 point advantage in November

Byron York

For all the complexities of polling, says Scott Rasmussen, there are some fairly simple numbers to remember when thinking about this years presidential race. For the last 20 years, between 37 and 39 percent of voters on Election Day have been Democrats, says the pollster. Republicans have ranged from 32 to 37 percent. Right now, our sample looks like 36 percent Republican versus 39 percent Democrat.

The bottom line, Rasmussen continues, is that there is most likely a two, three, or four percentage point advantage out there for Democrats. Thats what its been for nearly a generation; thats probably what will happen on November 6.

Given that, and factoring in independents, Rasmussens national surveys show Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney by a small margin. The president has a two-point advantage in the latest Rasmussen national tracking poll, and comparably small margins in the super-swing states of Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. I think the race is tilting, just barely, in Obamas favor, with the potential to shift between now and Election Day, he says.

After some polls, particularly one from Quinnipiac and the New York Times, showed huge Obama leads in the swing states  nine points in Florida and ten in Ohio  theres been a contentious debate about the relationship between state polls and national polls. Romney aides constantly point reporters toward the national polls. Of course they do; those polls are closer, and at the moment the Romney campaign is fighting hard against the impression, gaining momentum in some media circles, that the race is virtually over.

Team Romney has a point. When there are national polls showing a very tight race and big swing state polls showing a blowout, something is likely wrong. If the national results are close on November 6, its very unlikely that Ohio and Florida will be blowouts. And if Ohio and Florida are blowouts, its very unlikely the national race will be close. When all is said and done, says Rasmussen, it is impossible for me to conceive of a circumstance where there is a huge discrepancy between those key states and the national numbers.

And whatever the numbers are at this moment, Rasmussen expects them to move by Election Day. In the last three elections, he notes, the polls moved against the incumbent party in the final weeks of the race. Thats not an unbreakable pattern, and it might not happen this time, but it suggests Romney will gain on Obama, at least a bit, before November 6. Of course, some major, unexpected event might move things more.

Meanwhile, Republicans across the country continue to express skepticism, scorn, and in some cases outright contempt for the polls. Last week in Ohio, voter after voter at Romney-Ryan rallies complained about the polls, with most saying they just dont believe them. Its something every pollster, left, right, and center, is hearing every day.

When polls appear to be in dispute, says Rasmussen, partisans go to the ones they like best and say they are right and everything else is wrong. Then they rationalize it. You rationalize things to fit what you want the world to be.

Excellent points. I’m sensing something big in the making. I just hope once Romney is President we stay on him like white on rice. He’ll have his hands full getting us back on track and it’s up to us to watch him like a hawk. No, make that an Eagle!

It’s a shocking statstic that anyone that was honest would say is clearly racist. Well ok I would be shocked if 96% backed a Black Republican. However, most of those 96% know they are guaranteed a pay raise under Obama.

A lot of Republicans in 2008 stayed away from the POTUS section of the ballot because of McCain. I think that number was significant.

I doubt that, especially with Palin on the ticket. Let's keep in mind Obama got 69 million votes and McCain 59 million. In 2004, Bush got 62 million and Kerry 59 million (up from 50 million for each candidate in 2000). I don't think anyone stayed home in 2008. But about 5% of former Bush voters appear to have voted for Obama, plus 7 million brand new voters.

And I believe, unlike with McCain, a significant amount of conservatives will stay home for Romney and that the failure to turn out his base will be his greatest weakness in this election. Social issue voters are often single-issue voters. McCain was a convincing, long-time pro-life, anti-same-sex-marriage candidate. Romney's credentials on those issues are as questionable as they get for any Republican.

104
posted on 09/29/2012 10:09:53 PM PDT
by JediJones
(KARL ROVE: "And remember, this year, no one is seriously talking about ending abortion.")

Polls aren’t necessarily accurate when divided up into smaller demographic groups. That doesn’t mean the overall total isn’t accurate. Naturally, the sample of men or women in the poll is only half the total sample. And if the total sample was just the minimum quantity needed to be accurate, half of the total will be only half what is needed to be accurate about each gender’s preferences. Rasmussen would need to double his original sample size in order to get accurate numbers for each gender. Otherwise the original poll can only be accurate for the group it defines, i.e. voters, not for smaller sub-groups within it.

112
posted on 09/29/2012 10:29:27 PM PDT
by JediJones
(KARL ROVE: "And remember, this year, no one is seriously talking about ending abortion.")

“Only an Obot muzzie loving commie cant see the difference between the two, jackass.”

There isn’t any difference MittBot, other than that he isn’t Obama. And outside of political junkies, most people who learn more about Romney who dislike Obama tend to seriously consider just staying home. I’ve seen it happen. Romney is a damaged candidate because of his policy positions and his dishonesty, which are on par with Obama’s. That is why approval ratings are low for both Obama and Mittens, when Mittens hasn’t even had a chance to BE President yet, and why one cannot seem to beat the other outright even with a trashed economy and our embassies burning over seas. Not my fault your RNC programming won’t allow you to calculate that.

Nobody casts a vote for Vice President for the simple reason that a Vice President has no official policy making function. They are largely figureheads. Their official title is “Presdient of the Senate”, but how often does a veep ever show up there to make any sort of policy decisions? Almost never.

Your other points are well taken, but 69 million Obama voters gives a lot of pause. Turns out a significant number of them proved to be false - that’s why ACORN went into oblivion after being indicted in 15 states. Obama had “voters” apparenly living in homes that were vacant. His 2008 “ground game” had “block captains” living in each neighborhood to identify those who had moved away to another voting district, and their vacated units became home to a stunning number of non-habitating residents, all of whom somehow consistently voted for Obama from a home they never lived in. That’s the stuff not in effect now - nowhere near it. It’s like his twitter following of 18 million. A British group investigated and discovered 70% of Obama’s twitter followers don’t even exist.

I grew up in Cincinnati. Two weeks ago I was on the phone with my mom, as she was watching the local news cover Obama’s appearance there. You wanna know where he spoke? Eden Park - a public park. Say what you want about settings, this is NOT a place where you would - or even could - host a large crowd. Romney was in Cincinnati the week before, at Union Terminal, the former train station turned into a destination. Romney played to nearly 10,000 people. Obama had less than a third of that - which is why he was in the park and not the train station. So whatever he allegedly had in 2008, it’s clearly gone. The Smoke has cleared and the Mirrors are cleaned. When the POTUS shows up in the same town a week after his rival does and draws less than a third of the crowd, it can’t be good. No matter what 2008 was like.

Nobody casts a vote for Vice President for the simple reason that a Vice President has no official policy making function. They are largely figureheads. Their official title is “Presdient of the Senate”, but how often does a veep ever show up there to make any sort of policy decisions? Almost never.

Your other points are well taken, but 69 million Obama voters gives a lot of pause. Turns out a significant number of them proved to be false - that’s why ACORN went into oblivion after being indicted in 15 states. Obama had “voters” apparenly living in homes that were vacant. His 2008 “ground game” had “block captains” living in each neighborhood to identify those who had moved away to another voting district, and their vacated units became home to a stunning number of non-habitating residents, all of whom somehow consistently voted for Obama from a home they never lived in. That’s the stuff not in effect now - nowhere near it. It’s like his twitter following of 18 million. A British group investigated and discovered 70% of Obama’s twitter followers don’t even exist.

I grew up in Cincinnati. Two weeks ago I was on the phone with my mom, as she was watching the local news cover Obama’s appearance there. You wanna know where he spoke? Eden Park - a public park. Say what you want about settings, this is NOT a place where you would - or even could - host a large crowd. Romney was in Cincinnati the week before, at Union Terminal, the former train station turned into a destination. Romney played to nearly 10,000 people. Obama had less than a third of that - which is why he was in the park and not the train station. So whatever he allegedly had in 2008, it’s clearly gone. The Smoke has cleared and the Mirrors are cleaned. When the POTUS shows up in the same town a week after his rival does and draws less than a third of the crowd, it can’t be good. No matter what 2008 was like.

Nobody casts a vote for Vice President for the simple reason that a Vice President has no official policy making function. They are largely figureheads. Their official title is “Presdient of the Senate”, but how often does a veep ever show up there to make any sort of policy decisions? Almost never.

Your other points are well taken, but 69 million Obama voters gives a lot of pause. Turns out a significant number of them proved to be false - that’s why ACORN went into oblivion after being indicted in 15 states. Obama had “voters” apparenly living in homes that were vacant. His 2008 “ground game” had “block captains” living in each neighborhood to identify those who had moved away to another voting district, and their vacated units became home to a stunning number of non-habitating residents, all of whom somehow consistently voted for Obama from a home they never lived in. That’s the stuff not in effect now - nowhere near it. It’s like his twitter following of 18 million. A British group investigated and discovered 70% of Obama’s twitter followers don’t even exist.

I grew up in Cincinnati. Two weeks ago I was on the phone with my mom, as she was watching the local news cover Obama’s appearance there. You wanna know where he spoke? Eden Park - a public park. Say what you want about settings, this is NOT a place where you would - or even could - host a large crowd. Romney was in Cincinnati the week before, at Union Terminal, the former train station turned into a destination. Romney played to nearly 10,000 people. Obama had less than a third of that - which is why he was in the park and not the train station. So whatever he allegedly had in 2008, it’s clearly gone. The Smoke has cleared and the Mirrors are cleaned. When the POTUS shows up in the same town a week after his rival does and draws less than a third of the crowd, it can’t be good. No matter what 2008 was like.

The difficult thing when looking at overall turnout of past elections is that Romney will have to match or beat the highest voter turnout ever for a Republican president, Bush in 2004 (62 million), and ALSO reduce Obama’s 2008 turnout (69 million) by at least 10% to win.

117
posted on 09/29/2012 10:38:01 PM PDT
by JediJones
(KARL ROVE: "And remember, this year, no one is seriously talking about ending abortion.")

And outside of political junkies, most people who learn more about Romney who dislike Obama tend to seriously consider just staying home. Ive seen it happen.

I've seen it happen in PA. In this case it was more about Romney's personality and perceived intelligence than his political positions. This is not someone who would stay home but someone who said Romney is so unlikable that he might actually make them consider voting for Obama.

118
posted on 09/29/2012 10:43:07 PM PDT
by JediJones
(KARL ROVE: "And remember, this year, no one is seriously talking about ending abortion.")

“I’ve seen it happen in PA. In this case it was more about Romney’s personality and perceived intelligence than his political positions. This is not someone who would stay home but someone who said Romney is so unlikable that he might actually make them consider voting for Obama.”

Romney is better the more anonymous he is, and his campaign of being the more efficient Obama isn’t helping him, it’s hurting him. This fight, therefore, will be a personality and intelligence contest. It shall rise and fall with the zinger and the catchy phrase, or with events outside of the Obama vs Romney match. If the Republicans are lucky, the economy will collapse under Obama instead of next year. Obama asked the Euros to prop up Greece at least until after the election. We’ll see how successful they are.

He is hedging. Basically he’s saying, based on the historical party identification and turn out, Democrats have 2-4% advantage, so Obama might win. However, we have many people who are on the fence. Historically,they break for the non-incumbent, so Romney might win. Either way, he’ll keep the status of most accurate pollster.

124
posted on 09/30/2012 12:11:17 AM PDT
by paudio
(Post-racial society: When we can legitimately hire and fire a Black man without feeling guilty.)

Basically hes saying, based on the historical party identification and turn out, Democrats have 2-4% advantage, so Obama might win

Like 1994, and 2010, the great conservative and even moderate American sleeping giant will turnout and MAKE HISTORY. This WILL NOT BE a "normal election". They (we) are deeply fearful for our nation and will turn out and vote.

Think of how many self-identified Democrats register that way because of their union jobs in the private sector or government employment. How they vote is a different story.

In addition, after the Bush big government fiasco, many GOP members became independents or small “L” libertarians. They won’t be thrilled voting for Romney but it is about getting Obama out of office as the greater of two evils.

Just these two groups alone should skew the numbers 10% or so towards the GOP. Factor in a depressed voter turnout for Obamessiah by his key constituencies, and it is a rout even with the voter fraud that will occur.

polling as most here know has become very political. it’s seems most of the polling data is very suspect. let’s not forget the recent threats from Obama admin against Gallup. that was about a month ago. everyone’s talking about biased polling:

Please bookmark and pass around. Numbers seem more accurate to me. Get the word out to the community. The author of the unskewed polls site wrote several articles as well about these issues. This is psychological warfare. We need to counter this in any way we can. It’s done to suppress voter turnout and to give the perception that something is reality that in fact is not.

First, polling has never been an exact science, far from it.
Modern polling methods started with Gallup in 1936 just in tine for the Roosevelt-Landon election. Gallup picked the winner and embarrassed the Literary Digest out of business.

Yet even back then, Gallup wasn’t accurate. From 1936-1952 they were mediocre to terrible(especially Dewey-Truman in ‘48). From 1956-1976 they were pretty accurate with very good results in 1960 and 1968. However, from 1980-2012 with the exception of 1984 and 2004, they have been simply crap.

The election is close. Absent a serious screwup by either candidate it will remain close. It all boils down to turnout. hussein is a failed president with an incredible political machine and support of the state media. willard is a reasonably competent non-conservative with a much improved political machine. Neither inspire much enthusiasm outside of their hardcore supporters.

I think the south to a state goes for willard and the north with the possible exception of NH goes for hussein. And the election ends up being decided in the midwest.

The states to watch on the east coast are VA, FL, and PA. If PA, FL and VA go for willard, it’s over for hussein. If PA, FL and VA go for hussein, it’s over for willard. If it salts out how I think it will, PA will go for hussein, VA and FL go for willard and it’s decided in the midwest.

Like 1994, and 2010, the great conservative and even moderate American sleeping giant will turnout and MAKE HISTORY. This WILL NOT BE a “normal election”. They (we) are deeply fearful for our nation and will turn out and vote.

Both of those elections were mid-terms when Democrats don’t typically vote.

I suppose it is possible he does not just use his affiliation numbers directly in his party affiliation models for some reason or another that I suppose only he could explain.
+++++++++++++++
Raz does not use his party affiliation results in his Turnout Model. He collects that data and may use it to fudge his D+2 to D+4 model one way or another but, based on the article, he thinks the historical voting patterns are the more important element.

Note that Unskewedpolls.com does use the Rasmussen party affiliation figure as the likely Turnout Model. Right now that number is, IIRC, R+4. Compare that to Rasmussen’s presumed D+3 and you have a 7 point differential.

Not good.

OTOH, we should win if it’s D+2, we normally do. This race is still winnable. We did it in 2010 and we will do it in 2012.

“a conclusion that MIGHT be true but fir which there is no evidence to indicate WILL be true”

Okay, but why does erring in the side of caution always mean erring on the side of Democrats? Because of party affiliation? But they can’t judge when voters will jump parties, nor when turnout will be depressed, nor how indies will go. So they call it the best way they can, given their limitations. Sometimes they’re right, as when it’s painfully obvious in 08. And sometimes they miss it, as in 04, 10, or the Wisconsin recall.

My thinking is they don’t really try to predict the outcome, just be able to say they took all the precautions and followed the industry standards. So that we get this fantasy world of polls alongside the real world. And no one will care, because producing them and reporting them are done for their own sake, rather than for telling the future. So long as they’re not so far off should people remember they don’t have an excuse.

Today the party id is R+4.5 and the turnout will be D+4 with a stronger enthusiasm gap? I dont think so. Makes no sense.
+++++++++++
I don’t think so either. I do believe that Raz needs to see that R+4.5 either hold or grow through September and October and at that point he will adjust his Turnout Model to be more favorable to our side.

But don’t forget, that R+4.5 is a high water mark for the GOP and it seems unlikely to be sustained through November 6. We don’t have the Rasmussen results for September yet but they should be out next week and I expect they will get a lot of attention here at FR.

Like it or not, there are now more parasites than producers. If the parasites vote, even once, the producers lose. 2010, for one reason or another, most of the parasites stayed home. The RINOs made sure that for the most part, no damage was done to the Socialists programs enacted in 2009 and 2010.

In 2012, look for a re-run of 2008 when the parasites, self hating Whites, American haters, brainwashed and stupid youths joined forces to send an imposter to the White House. Come November 2012, look for the same bunch, along with obama's vote counters to keep him there.

I am struck by the fact that I am NOT seeing Obama signs or bumper stickers in Northern Virginia this time around. Yesterday, I ran errands all around western Fairfax County and eastern Loudoun - the Dulles area. I saw one Obama bumper sticker.

I know many government employees - black and white - who are embarrassed by Obama’s inept performance. Still, they will feel socially ostracized if they voice support for the GOP, or if they criticize Obama. My question is whether they will show up to vote for Obama.

The government union’s big issue is the pay freeze. AFGE is disseminating flyers that don’t mention Obama, but praise Reid and bash Boehner and the Republicans for supporting an extension of the Bush tax cuts. On the theory that increased taxes will get AFGE members the steady raises they are used to from the past. No mention that the Obama took away their raises as a political maneuver because he knows the union will support him regardless of what he does to them. No mention that govt employees did much better financially under Bush than under Obama.

There is a high level of interest across party lines in this first debate. People want to have their opinions validated. There is a percent of democrat voters, 2% - 5% who are persuadable. Romney’s team knows exactly who those voters are and will target them. If he gets even a portion of those and the majority of undecideds, he will win.

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